Shop & Tell: MAC’s 2019 Holiday Collection Face Compacts and Opalescent Powder (with swatches!)

It’s been a while since I’ve been so into a holiday collection to want to buy multiple products from it. I actually got these as soon as they came out, in fear they would sell out, but only got around to post about them now. Is this still relevant? Am I still on time?

You have to give me a break people, my kitchen is in shambles. Pre-Christmas construction work. Fun.

Planning a wedding, renovations in our home, on top of the budget closing, objective fulfilling, end-of-the-year season at my job: it’s been stressful. And I’ve been well behaved. Soooo I got myself a few treats. The two face palettes because I couldn’t decide between them and an extra highlighter because it was pretty and shinny.

MAC's 2019 Holiday Collection Face Compacts and Opalescent Powder
You can’t tell the palettes were swatched already. I couldn’t get my grubby little fingers off of them long enough to take a pristine picture, but thankfully, the star pattern lasts a while.

The powders in the palettes are all from their Extra Dimension formula. I’m not a stranger to it, I own two Extra Dimension blushes that I love, but never tried any of the Skinfinishes. Each palette comes with two of them, and I think that Hi-Sequincy, the white one from the light palette, is the only new one.

The palettes are labelled “medium deep” and “light” but I think that refers more to the colours in them and not the skintone they’re directed to. I’m fairly light and the bronzer on the deeper palette is a good colour on me.

Face compact in “Light” on the left, “Medium Deep” on the right.

From left to right, top to bottom of the “Light” palette:

  • Dipped in Stars blush- bright warm pink;
  • Sippin’ on Stars blush- reddish coral;
  • Show Gold skinfinish – duochrome highlighter that shifts between peach and pink;
  • Hi-Sequincy skinfinish – white champagne.

In the right image below, the gold swatch in the far right is the blush from the Medium Deep palette, for comparison.

From left to right, top to bottom of the “Medium Deep” palette:

  • Delphic bronze- medium warm brown;
  • Cloudy Copper blush- gold bronze;
  • Snowflushed skinfinish – duochrome highlighter that shifts copper and pink (a very popular repromote);
  • Oh, Darling skinfinish – medium gold.

I’ve worn the Sippin’ on Stars and the Cloudy Copper blushes a couple of times. They lasted the whole day and have that typical Extra Dimension shine and texture. Cloudy Copper specifically is very shiny, threading that thin line between blush and highlighter, but blends seamlessly with the skin and doesn’t emphasise pores or texture, regardless of the amount of shine. It’s almost like a skin glaze.

Because four highlighters weren’t enough, I got the Opalescent Powder in Shooting Star, a light lavender pink colour. With this, the packaging weighted more in my decision than what I’d like to admit. The sparkly, glossy packaging drew me in like the magpie I am. It’s much more subtle than the Extra Dimension Skinfinishes. Totally different formula: the powder texture is more noticeable but also very, very smooth.

Multi-coloured sparkle prettiness.

Here are the swatches of all the highlighters of both palettes, in case you need to see them side by side to catch a difference that justifies getting the two, and the opalescent powder:

See? They’re all different.

I think this might be the best holiday makeup collection I’ve seen so far. It’s huge and I’ve read that the lipsticks aren’t so great, but the cheek items are amazing. Any of them is recommendable, but if I could only get one, it would probably be the “Medium Deep” face palette, because it seems to have the more unique yet wearable shades.

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7 Comments

    1. I actually order them online – couldn’t even wait to get to the store, I was so afraid that they would sell out! And then I did exactly what you said and made myself poor 😛

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